Page 181 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

ENGLISH AND DUTCH RIVALRY IN THE EAST 181

in the relation of suzerain to many of the minor princes,
agreements or treaties under which the local authorities
bound themselves to supply their spices only to the Dutch
and to them under rigid conditions which practically made
serfs of the islanders. But if the Dutch attitude was a
natural one still more so was that of the English when
they resolutely declined to accept the theory of exclusive
rights which their trade rivals sought to establish. They
took the line that the seas were open to all, that free trade
was an inalienable right of every nation, and that if the
Hollanders had done the principal part in breaking the
Portuguese monopoly, they would never have achieved
the amount of success they did if the way had not been pre­
pared for them by England’s defeat of the Great Armada
in 1588.
In a controversy of this character, in which there was an
element of right on each side, and in which there was a
substantial financial interest involved the issue was certain
to be fiercely contested. But probably neither party
at the outset dreamed that so bitter and prolonged a quarrel
would develop from it as that it gave rise to. The Eng­
lish, at all events, seem to have had little conception of the
difficulties which the Dutch were to interpose to their
trading until they were actually confronted with them.
The earliest purely trading visit paid to the Moluccas
was that made by Sir Henry Middleton in 1604. On this
occasion excellent relations were established with the
natives and, no doubt, if the voyage had been followed up
immediately a lodgment might have been effected which
the Dutch could not have challenged. But nothing further
of consequence was done until 1609 when Keeling took a
ship to the Moluccas and was warned off by the Dutch in